Happiness Key (40 page)

Tracy rested her hand on Olivia’s shoulder. “There are a lot of things we don’t know about what just happened, but in no way is this your fault, Olivia. You did what you were taught, which was to listen to your father, and I’m afraid he made sure you couldn’t do anything else. So the grown-ups had to make things right, not you. Even if you had known, you’re a little girl, and people don’t always listen to everything children say.”

“You do.”

Tracy smiled. “I’ll always listen to
you.
”

“My nana’s old, and she’s been awfully sick.”

This, at least, was something Tracy could reassure her about. “But her doctor’s sure she’s going to pull through just fine. You’ve seen how much better she is when you visit.”

“What if she dies?”

“I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

“Tracy, it will happen someday. People do.”

Uttered in Olivia’s most grown-up voice, this unfortunate truth broke Tracy’s heart. “Okay, you’re right. So what’s the question?”

Olivia lowered her voice. “I think I’d be an orphan. I don’t have cousins or aunts and uncles. What will happen to me if everybody’s gone?”

Tracy tugged Olivia close and put her arms around her. For a moment she couldn’t speak.

She finally summoned her voice, although she had to clear her throat first. “Olivia, sweetie, if your grandmother dies before you’re all grown-up, or she gets sick
and can’t take care of you anymore, you can come live with me. We’ll even fix it so it’s all legal, okay? And Janya and Wanda will always be here for you. You’re one of our gang. We love you.”

Olivia relaxed against her. Then she finally began to cry.

Tracy stroked Olivia’s hair and realized that she had just promised she would stay in Florida until the girl became a woman. Because how would she be able to keep an eye on Alice and Olivia unless she was living right here, watching over them?

She waited for the jolt of an anchor hitting bottom, the familiar sensation that she was a sleek yacht moored in a fleet of dinghies. Instead, she looked up the beach and saw Marsh and Bay ambling toward them. She felt her anchor dropping gently into a bountiful estuary, the place where life begins.

Wanda felt like an actress on opening night after an exhaustive dress rehearsal. Even the care she took dressing and doing her hair and makeup was the same care a Broadway star took before walking out on stage.

She chose a scoop-necked peach T-shirt and under it the new flesh-colored bra she’d bought at Victoria’s Secret. She passed over her comfortable capris for white linen slacks that hid her varicose veins. And she painted her toenails a brilliant scarlet. She was ready to meet Shadow at last.

That afternoon she’d gone back over her records, to see how many times she and Shadow had talked. She’d counted eleven, none of them for long. She hadn’t made enough money off the guy to buy a good pirate romance and a bottle of wine. Of course, with Shadow, the relationship had never been about money. They had con
nected. From the beginning, she had understood him and looked forward to his calls. He was the only caller she took these days, and Lainie had finally given up and found someone else to permanently take her place. Wanda wasn’t sorry.

Last night, when Shadow asked her to meet him, she hadn’t hesitated. For some time, probably almost from the first, she had known this was inevitable. They were soul mates. The phone conversations had only been a prelude to something more intimate and important. She was ready for both.

They had decided to meet on the beach near the Indian mound. She’d told him what she would be wearing, and he’d told her to look for a man in a light blue sport shirt and jeans. She supposed it was possible he would take off once he saw the real her. But she didn’t think so. Shadow just wasn’t that kind of man.

After a short walk, she put Chase in the house and got in her car. She hadn’t been more nervous than this when she’d seen Lee Symington charging up behind Tracy and Alice in Alice’s dark bedroom. On that occasion she’d also been furious, and if she had been able to leap in and throttle the man, she would have done it. She had never been happier to see her husband, and never prouder of the man Ken was and what he did. She thought the encounter with Lee had proved he could still do his job, that he wasn’t trigger-happy or gun-shy, but simply a good cop with a conscience. She supposed she had Lee to thank for that, if for nothing else he had ever done except sire Olivia.

The drive to the stretch of beach Shadow had suggested took only five minutes. She arrived right on time, parked, took a deep breath, then another for good measure, and stepped into the parking lot. She crossed it,
the heels of her sandals ringing against the pavement. There were other cars parked here, but none she recognized. In her opinion, Palmetto Grove was just the right size. A woman could make friends, find her own little community, but she could also be one of a larger crowd. And that was what she was hoping for this evening.

The sun had another hour to go before it melted into the horizon, but the sky was streaked with rose and flame. Most of her life she had taken Florida sunsets for granted, but she knew she could never live in a place where this sight wasn’t a short drive away. She understood why Ken had hoped to find his way back to life by walking for endless hours on this beach.

Not too far beyond where she’d parked, a man in a blue sport shirt was looking out over the water. He was broad shouldered, and he stood tall, as if he were stretching toward the sky. He had a narrow waistline for a man pushing sixty, and his jeans were tight enough to outline a nicely shaped behind. His hair was cut short, and it made the integrity written on his features that much easier to see.

She stopped beside him, and he turned.

“Hey, Kenny.”

He nodded. “Wanda.”

They stood shoulder-to-shoulder, staring out at the water.

“So when did you know it was me?” he asked at last.

“The voice had me fooled for a little while. You use one of those voice changing thingies from that closet of spy toys the department’s got?”

“Yeah.”

“And some kind of cell phone? Maybe one of the throwaways?”

“You’ve been married to a cop for a lot of years.”

“I guess it was easier to talk to me if you could pretend you were somebody else. Easier to tell me what you were thinking about.”

“It was never easy.”

They were quiet a little longer. Then she turned, forcing him to turn, too. “And when did you know it was me? Right from the first?”

He nodded.

“How?”

“I tried to call you a couple of times in the evenings, and our line was always busy. One night I came home early and heard you talking to some man. After that, tracking what you were doing and who you were doing it for was easy enough.”

“I guess I always figured you’d find out one way or the other.”

“So why did you do it?”

“To get even. To feel sexy and special for somebody, since I wasn’t either of those things for you anymore. To have somebody to talk to at night while you were gone.”

“That’s it?”

“No. I guess I wanted to have a secret, too, because it seemed like you had so many.”

“Sounds like you’ve been thinking about it.”

“You could say that.”

“I can’t tell you I’m sorry for feeling the way I did. You see that sun going down over there? It was like that for me. Everything good, everything special, just disappeared over the horizon. But believe it or not, you were the moon that kept my sky from going all black, Wanda. Maybe I didn’t know how to tell you, or even how to reach out my hand, but you were the only thing helping me see at all in that darkness.”

He was not a man who spouted poetry, but she thought
being compared to the moon was a fine thing. Tears filled her eyes.

“Kenny, I wanted to hurt you, and that’s a fact. I just felt so lost. You expect to lose a lot in this life, and I knew someday I might lose you to some crazy person with a gun. But I never thought I’d lose you when you were still coming home most evenings. I just didn’t know what to do about it.”

“That crazy man with the gun? I shot and killed him down in Cutler Bay, and when he died, I guess he just took me along. So I can’t say I’m sorry for feeling like I was down in that grave with him, but I am sorry I pushed you aside when I was trying to claw my way back up and you were standing there with your hand out. A real man doesn’t ask for help, and he doesn’t take it when it’s offered. And for me, trying to be that real man, a real cop, was all that was left of the man I used to be.”

She put her arm around his waist and rested her head on his shoulder. “I’m sorry, too. Sorry I was talking to strange men when I should have been trying harder to talk to you. But just for the record, except for Shadow, they were just lonely old farts who needed to talk about the times when they weren’t lonely and they weren’t old. That’s all the job ever was.”

His arm crept around her waist, and his hand splayed over her hip. “We’re some pair, aren’t we?”

“Are we? Still a pair?”

“You’re going to hang up that phone of yours?”

“Well, if Shadow ever needs to talk to me again, I might take his calls.”

“I think maybe now he can say what he needs to right to your face.”

“It will be better that way, Kenny.”

She hugged him hard. She had come to this beach
thinking it might be the end of her marriage, and now what had passed for one since that awful night in Cutler Bay was gone. But this new marriage, with both of them talking and trying together? She thought maybe these would be the best years of all.

Frail and a little unsteady, Alice still looked so much better than she had a week ago that the women broke into applause when she walked proudly to Wanda’s car. Since her release from the hospital four days ago, she had been using a cane Janya bought at a garage sale and painted in pastel swirls. All the women had signed it with get-well messages in silver and gold, and Alice claimed that even when she didn’t need the cane anymore, she planned to use it occasionally, just because it made her feel so good.

“Nana, you sit up front,” Olivia said, holding out her hand to help her grandmother into the car.

“Like…a queen.”

“Queen Alice,” Wanda said. “Queen of Happiness Key.”

Olivia made sure her grandmother was comfortably tucked in; then she got in the back with Tracy and Janya. Tracy swung her legs to the side so Olivia could crawl over her and sit between them. She knew Olivia felt most secure being sandwiched between her friends.

“The new earrings really are so beautiful,” Janya told the girl. “They suit you perfectly.”

Olivia smiled shyly. Last week, with Alice’s permission, Tracy and Olivia had made a trip to a local jeweler, where Olivia had picked out sapphire chip studs to match her pretty blue eyes. She held Tracy’s hand when the man pierced her ears, but Tracy figured that after everything else, Olivia had found the pain a minor inconvenience. They would be almost healed by the time school started next week.

“Now you’re sure you feel up to this?” Wanda asked Alice before she started the car.

“Ready and willing.”

Properly medicated, well-fed and hydrated, Alice had regained much of the strength and mental clarity she had lost in the weeks before Lee’s arrest. She had also regained some of her funds. A forensic accountant who worked with the police department had discovered an extensive paper trail leading to accounts Lee had set up for himself, guaranteeing prosecution on those charges. Although some of Alice’s money would never be recovered, it looked as if her final years might be comfortable enough.

Wanda pulled away from the cottage. While Alice had been in the hospital, the neighbors had scrubbed every inch of her house, repainted, and rescreened all the windows and doors, hoping to remove some of the unhappy memories of the past weeks. The aquarium was pristine once again, and they had added several fish, including the prettiest angelfish Olivia could find. The bedroom Lee had used now belonged to his daughter, who had helped Yash paint it turquoise. Tracy had found curtains of just the right pink, and a fluffy pink rug, and two days ago they had added a pine bookcase, and a
matching canopy bed and dresser, more garage sale finds of Janya’s. There were no traces of Lee in the house now, except in Olivia and Alice’s worst memories.

“Well, our reservation’s not until seven,” Wanda said. “No early bird for us tonight. We’re celebrating Alice’s return, and I recommend the grouper to all you meat eaters. Nobody cooks grouper better. Our cook said he’ll do a special vegetarian lasagna for Janya.”

“Why so late?” Tracy asked. “That’s an hour away.”

“We’re going to scout out Allamanda Street. According to Gloria Madsen, that’s where Clyde was living right before he turned himself into Herb.”

Tracy leaned forward, intrigued. “Wait a minute. I thought you couldn’t find a street with that name. Didn’t you look it up after you talked to her?”

“I did. But I said something to Kenny about it last night, and he said Gloria’s memory might be fine. Seems the city regularly changes the names of streets, and I should look it up in an old directory instead of a new one.”

“This being married to a cop’s a good thing.”

“In more ways than you know. Anyway, I called city hall. Turns out back in the sixties, somebody got it into his head to change all the streets over by the bird sanctuary to bird names. Big stink when they did it, too. Allamanda Street is now Pelican Way.”

Tracy knew the area. She’d actually been to the sanctuary with Marsh and Bay to see a bald eagle’s nest. Even harder to admit, she’d enjoyed herself.

“They built a lot of condo complexes in that area,” she warned. “Wild Florida forced the developers to donate an extra hundred yards of property rimming the sanctuary before they got the permits. And they had to use native foliage and build special storm drainage ponds.”

“That boyfriend of yours will make an environmentalist out of you, you don’t watch yourself.”

Tracy didn’t correct the title. She wasn’t sure what Marsh was, but “boyfriend” was as accurate as anything else, even if it sounded like a word from another era.

“Anyway, if Alice is up to it,” Wanda said, “we’ll just wander a little, see if anybody there remembers the Franklins. We can take a little walk in the sanctuary, nothing else turns up.”

Since Alice’s return, they had mastered the art of mundane conversation, taking care not to bring up the subject of Lee. Now they chatted about the search for Herb’s family. Tracy had given up looking and was planning to pack up his stuff as soon as her job ended and she had time. Wanda had arranged this side trip as an excuse to stretch their legs and give Alice some exercise, but even she didn’t expect to turn up anything.

“I’m sorry we didn’t find that daughter of his,” Tracy said, “but nobody can say we didn’t give the whole thing a good try. I guess in the end we did everything we could for the old guy.”

They talked about the upcoming shuffleboard tournament and mural unveiling on Saturday, the need to buy Olivia’s school supplies with the school year starting in less than a week, the election. By the time Wanda consulted her directions a third time and found the right turn, they were ready to get out.

Pelican Way was one long block, a dead end made up of a mixture of small houses and two-story apartment buildings that looked like snowbird rentals. The street was at least a quarter of a mile from the water, and the houses that remained were run-down and might be rentals, too.

Everyone got out, with Janya helping Alice. Children were laughing and calling to each other behind one of the
houses, and a motorcycle roared past before it cut into an apartment lot. Sidewalks were pot luck, so they walked on the side of the road instead. The street ended at a swampy creek with a couple of picnic tables and a disintegrating volleyball net. A short footbridge crossed the water to where a new street began.

“I’m trying to imagine this place right after the war,” Wanda said. “Baby boomers running helter-skelter, parents sitting on their screened porches, maybe having the neighbors over for highballs. Men talking about where they’d been, women talking about what they’d done while the men were gone.”

“A good place,” Alice said.

“Was it like that where you lived?” Tracy asked.

“Neighbors paid attention.” Alice had been walking carefully, feeling her way slowly with the cane to be sure she didn’t take a tumble. Now she looked up and smiled sadly. “Like mine.”

Olivia slipped her hand into her grandmother’s.

“I hate to say it, but I doubt anybody living here will remember Herb,” Wanda said. “Clyde, I mean. That was a long time ago. But I’m game to knock on a door or two.”

“We could try the houses.” Tracy silently counted seven, including one that looked as if it had been built as a duplex.

They started back up the other side of the road, walking slowly and chatting about which house to try first. Somebody’s television broadcast the evening news into the humid evening air.

Wanda stopped and pointed at a house sporting a poodle tied to a railing. “Gloria said Herb’s house was little, and the screened porch was up on concrete blocks, like that one right there.”

“And the one over there,” Tracy said, pointing across
the street. “Not to mention that in the decades since she saw it, it might have gone through a renovation or two.”

“Okay, Miss Smarty Pants, you think we ought to start with the ones that don’t look anything like her description?”

“Whatever, but you’re going to be so embarrassed if that poodle takes a chunk out of you.”

“Me, I understand poodles.” Wanda sniffed and marched up the walkway, admonishing the little white dog as she got closer, until it slunk off into the bushes.

“I’m glad Wanda wasn’t
my
mother,” Tracy said.

Wanda tapped on the porch door and yoo-hooed, but nobody answered. She finally gave up and joined them at the curb. “What’s next?”

“I think the woman crossing the street might be,” Janya said.

Tracy turned and saw a woman Alice’s age or older bearing down on them from another house across the way. She looked like a leaf blowing in the wind, impossibly light and fragile, with skin desiccated into alligator hide.

“I’m not signing petitions, and I have my own political party and church, so I don’t need to hear about yours.” The woman recited the lines in a weary voice, as if she had said them too many times.

“I guess that’s the advantage of living on the key,” Wanda said, holding out her hand. “Too far for hustlers. My name’s Wanda Gray.” She introduced the others. “We’re not looking for signatures, votes or converts. Just trying to solve a mystery.”

Tracy watched the woman’s eyes light up. Silently she congratulated Wanda on an inspired approach.

The woman didn’t introduce herself, as if she was still wary, but she gave a little nod. “I like a good mystery.”

“Well, here’s the story. A neighbor of ours died. We think he was related to some folks who used to live on this street. It’s a long shot, but we thought we’d see if we can find them. As far as we can tell, none of his relatives know he passed on.”

“What’s the world coming to?” the old woman asked.

Again Tracy thought Wanda’s approach was inspired. No need to go into the Herb-Clyde-altered identity story. As far as Wanda had taken it, her version was true.

“Have you lived on Pelican Way very long?” Janya asked.

“Since back when it was Allamanda. Nobody’s lived here longer.”

“Then you’re the one we want,” Wanda said. “The way people up and move these days, we didn’t think we’d find anybody of consequence.”

“This is Florida. Where else would I retire?”

Olivia was sifting through pebbles in a nearby driveway, and Alice was leaning heavily on her cane. Tracy figured they ought to get right to the point.

“So did you happen to know the Franklins?” Tracy smiled. “Clyde and Louise Franklin?”

Tracy waited for the head shake that had been the answer of choice almost every time they asked a question. Instead, the woman shrugged.

“I didn’t know Clyde. I moved here after he died. But I sure knew Louise. We used to play gin rummy every Wednesday night. Is that who your neighbor was related to?”

“To Clyde.” Wanda’s eyes were sparkling, but she made her answer sound as if this were just a regular conversation. “We know Louise was killed in a car crash some years back.”

“Awful thing. Poor woman deserved better. Every
body on the street liked Louise, even if they felt a little sorry for her. That Clyde of hers?” She lowered her voice. “She had him declared dead, you know. Never found out what happened to the man.”

“It’s a crying shame,” Wanda said. “Living with something like that, then dying without knowing.”

“I felt bad for Pam. She was a good girl, serious like her mother, and kind. A hard worker, too. She finished putting herself through college, but she never came back here to live. She moved up north. Most of the houses left on the street are rentals now, you know, with people coming and going so fast I just stopped trying to keep up. I have a group of friends from church and my bridge club, and I spend summers with my daughter’s family in New England, so I’m not home a lot.”

Tracy felt her hopes deflate again. “Which house was Louise’s? Is it still there?”

“Oh, yeah, down at the end.” She pointed away from the footbridge. “Between the apartments.”

Tracy couldn’t see the house well, but they had parked right in front of it. From her vantage point it looked a little larger, a little more modern than the one they were standing in front of.

“It’s a rental, too?” Wanda asked.

“Right. Has been since Pam left. See, vacation apartments started going up, and people sold off their houses one by one to builders. A few of us held out, but after a while everybody who’d kept their houses moved away, and now they just rent them out. Except me, of course. We’d probably all sell if we could, but these days nobody wants to build apartments, not with all the condos on prettier streets around here. I guess when it’s time to move out for good, I’ll be renting mine, too, the way Pam does. Or sell it for peanuts.”

Tracy nearly missed the part about Pam, but Wanda didn’t. “So Pam still owns the house and rents it out?”

“Oh, right from the beginning. I’ve never seen a For Sale sign over there, although I’m not sure why. And some parade of tenants she’s had. From what I can tell, they change about every year or so.”

“Have you seen her, then?”

“She’s got somebody managing the rentals, somebody else taking care of the property. She doesn’t have to show up too often, but she drops by once in a while to check on things. Four or five years ago she came by around Christmas time and left me a note, but I was visiting my son in Orlando.”

“Would you happen to have her address?”

“No, it’s been a lot of years since we had a chat.”

“The renter…” Alice leaned forward, propping herself on the cane. “They would know?”

“Seems like it. I don’t know her name. I think she might have moved in back in early spring when I was off on a cruise, and then I came back and left again for the summer. Just got back last week. A sweet girl, though. She has a little boy, just a toddler, and she always waves. I guess now that I’m home again, I’ll get around to meeting them.”

“I think we’ll just check with her,” Tracy said. “Maybe she can put us in touch with Pamela.”

“Good luck to you. You must really have liked your neighbor to go to all this trouble.” She headed toward her house, and her poodle slunk out of the bushes to go with her.

“It can’t be this easy,” Tracy said, as they started back toward their car and the house that was almost directly across from it. It was frame construction, like the one they’d just visited, but the stoop was enclosed in red
brick, and the windows were all new. The house had recently been painted a mustardy-yellow, and if there had once been a screened porch, it was gone now. A riding toy shaped like a banana stood between them and the door, and a beach ball adorned the stoop.